Comment by starspangled

Interesting question. I'm not sure what "woman" has to do with it since they're both women, but we'll go with it. It would be helpful if you could link your comment, but I guess it's been nuked. Anyway...

Just because you can tie a person to work they have performed using public records does not seem like it should put them on the same level as someone who communicates with and creates work directly to the public, or a public figure. Not even if some of the actual work itself is performed in some open and observable space -- For example I don't think one has any more or less moral right to commentate on and publicly critique the work of a carpenter working on a building scaffold that's easily observable from the public street, than one does about a programmer working on their own idea from their own home in private. That seems like the immediate obvious difference between the two situations you describe. They don't sound equivalent at all, so I don't think you can win your case on that angle.

But work by "non-public-figures" is frequently posted about and commented on at Hackernews. Obviously open source work is a significant source of such discussion simply because it is accessible. Therefore, clearly it's not entirely verboten to talk about that. Is it permitted to criticize? I don't have a particular example at hand but I'm quite certain that I've seen negative opinions about people's work on this site from time to time. I think this is the angle you could argue your case. Was it fair and consistent that yours was called an attack or harassment? Are similar criticisms of work by non-public-figures permitted on here? Without the full context we can't answer that.